EP3916542B1 - Usage profile based remote firmware upgrade for fire alarm system gateway - Google Patents
Usage profile based remote firmware upgrade for fire alarm system gateway Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- EP3916542B1 EP3916542B1 EP21173312.6A EP21173312A EP3916542B1 EP 3916542 B1 EP3916542 B1 EP 3916542B1 EP 21173312 A EP21173312 A EP 21173312A EP 3916542 B1 EP3916542 B1 EP 3916542B1
- Authority
- EP
- European Patent Office
- Prior art keywords
- firmware
- gateway
- firmware upgrade
- fire
- fire alarm
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Active
Links
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims description 12
- 238000004891 communication Methods 0.000 claims description 6
- 230000001413 cellular effect Effects 0.000 claims description 3
- 230000004927 fusion Effects 0.000 claims description 3
- 239000011159 matrix material Substances 0.000 claims description 3
- 238000012545 processing Methods 0.000 claims description 2
- 238000007726 management method Methods 0.000 claims 32
- 101001043598 Homo sapiens Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 Proteins 0.000 claims 1
- 102100021918 Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 Human genes 0.000 claims 1
- 230000006399 behavior Effects 0.000 description 7
- 230000001105 regulatory effect Effects 0.000 description 3
- 238000013459 approach Methods 0.000 description 2
- 230000006978 adaptation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000005540 biological transmission Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000012790 confirmation Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000001276 controlling effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000001419 dependent effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000012360 testing method Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000012546 transfer Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000012795 verification Methods 0.000 description 1
Images
Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F8/00—Arrangements for software engineering
- G06F8/60—Software deployment
- G06F8/65—Updates
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G08—SIGNALLING
- G08B—SIGNALLING OR CALLING SYSTEMS; ORDER TELEGRAPHS; ALARM SYSTEMS
- G08B25/00—Alarm systems in which the location of the alarm condition is signalled to a central station, e.g. fire or police telegraphic systems
- G08B25/14—Central alarm receiver or annunciator arrangements
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L12/00—Data switching networks
- H04L12/28—Data switching networks characterised by path configuration, e.g. LAN [Local Area Networks] or WAN [Wide Area Networks]
- H04L12/2803—Home automation networks
- H04L12/2807—Exchanging configuration information on appliance services in a home automation network
- H04L12/2814—Exchanging control software or macros for controlling appliance services in a home automation network
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L12/00—Data switching networks
- H04L12/66—Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L65/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication
- H04L65/10—Architectures or entities
- H04L65/102—Gateways
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
- H04L67/01—Protocols
- H04L67/02—Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
- H04L67/025—Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
- H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
- H04L67/34—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications involving the movement of software or configuration parameters
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F9/00—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units
- G06F9/06—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units using stored programs, i.e. using an internal store of processing equipment to receive or retain programs
- G06F9/44—Arrangements for executing specific programs
- G06F9/445—Program loading or initiating
- G06F9/44505—Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
- G06F9/4451—User profiles; Roaming
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G08—SIGNALLING
- G08B—SIGNALLING OR CALLING SYSTEMS; ORDER TELEGRAPHS; ALARM SYSTEMS
- G08B17/00—Fire alarms; Alarms responsive to explosion
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
- H04W4/00—Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
- H04W4/70—Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
- H04W8/00—Network data management
- H04W8/18—Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H05—ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- H05B—ELECTRIC HEATING; ELECTRIC LIGHT SOURCES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; CIRCUIT ARRANGEMENTS FOR ELECTRIC LIGHT SOURCES, IN GENERAL
- H05B47/00—Circuit arrangements for operating light sources in general, i.e. where the type of light source is not relevant
- H05B47/10—Controlling the light source
- H05B47/105—Controlling the light source in response to determined parameters
- H05B47/115—Controlling the light source in response to determined parameters by determining the presence or movement of objects or living beings
-
- Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
- Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
- Y02B—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TO BUILDINGS, e.g. HOUSING, HOUSE APPLIANCES OR RELATED END-USER APPLICATIONS
- Y02B20/00—Energy efficient lighting technologies, e.g. halogen lamps or gas discharge lamps
- Y02B20/40—Control techniques providing energy savings, e.g. smart controller or presence detection
Definitions
- the present disclosure relates to fire alarm systems, and in particular, gateways for use in fire alarm systems.
- Fire alarm system gateways are devices that can be expected to support various southbound drivers, to communicate to different fire panel brands (e.g., Gent, Notifier, Notifier-Inspire, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Eltek, Fusion), and various northbound drivers, to connect to a proprietary cloud and/or other management systems, for example, through Honeywell Forge/CLSS, Modbus, BACnet, Alarm transport (AlarmT), Matrix, etc.
- Fire panel brands e.g., Gent, Notifier, Notifier-Inspire, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Eltek, Fusion
- various northbound drivers to connect to a proprietary cloud and/or other management systems, for example, through Honeywell Forge/CLSS, Modbus, BACnet, Alarm transport (AlarmT), Matrix, etc.
- the gateway firmware is configured in the factory as a single monolithic package with all the drivers and shipped to customer sites. If there are any changes to any parts of the firmware, the entire firmware is packaged with all the drivers again and distributed as single upgrade package. This leads to several issues.
- any change to any part of the northbound or southbound drivers leads to distributing a new package which needs to be applied to all the gateways.
- Several customers may not install this new package, even though the upgrade package includes a description of the details of the upgrade and the applicability indicates that all the gateways in the field need the update and a notification goes to all the customers.
- the impact driver or module size may be small, the upgrade overall package size can be large and will consume more bandwidth to download. This becomes costly when this upgrade happens over a cellular network.
- a specific change/feature addition on a specific use case forces the software engineers to validate the entire package even though the change/feature addition may be small.
- a cloud connectivity change/feature addition need not be tested in a use case with alarm routing, however, since the package is a unitary, single package with all drivers, all the modules in the package have to be validated thoroughly before the release, which takes more time to release to market and causes a lot of work for the software engineers.
- US 2017/293478 A1 discloses a system and method for updating the firmware of slave units in a fire system that detects whether a new slave unit has been installed and compares the version of the firmware in the newly-installed slave unit with that of previously-installed slave units of the same type (including any backup copies of firmware stored by the master module in a file system).
- US 2018/152341 A1 discloses a gateway connected to a bus used for communication by a plurality of ECUs provided on-board a vehicle with: an external communication unit that receives, from a server external to the vehicle, firmware update information that includes updated firmware for one ECU from among the plurality of ECUs; an ECU information acquiring unit that acquires system configuration information indicating the type of each of the plurality of ECUs connected to the bus; and a FW update processing unit that performs a controlling operation to update firmware of the relevant ECU based on the updated firmware, after an operation verification of the updated firmware is performed using an ECU of each type indicated by the system configuration information.
- Embodiments of the present disclosure allow for the system to update firmware based on usage characteristics of components of the fire alarm system, as described in more detail below.
- a method includes creating a firmware upgrade package for a number of gateways of a number of fire alarm systems wherein each gateway has gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware and wherein the firmware upgrade package has multiple parts (e.g., including upgrades to at least one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware).
- This example method also includes creating a firmware upgrade profile having information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware, comparing the firmware upgrade profile to a gateway usage profile of a particular gateway wherein the gateway usage profile contains information indicating usage characteristics for the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware, and selecting one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to download to the particular gateway based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile.
- a remote upgrade of the gateway firmware is based on the usage pattern/behavior of the system.
- the gateway can be analyzed, for instance, over a period of time, based on its configuration, for one or more specific use cases and/or runtime behavior of the system.
- a use case can be an indication of actual use of a component (such as a protocol driver) of the system based on analysis of data from the system or can be based on a standard configuration used for a particular system setup (e.g., when a Notifier protocol driver is used, then a cloud connection type is used).
- a gateway may be configured to connect a Notifier brand fire panel to a connected life safety services (CLSS) cloud connectivity having alarm transport functionality.
- CLSS life safety services
- the usage pattern of the gateway can be identified as Notifier for a southbound (i.e., to the fire control panel) driver, and CLSS Cloud and AlarmT for the northbound (i.e., to the fire management system, such as at a remote command center) driver.
- the panel connectivity of the gateway can be identified as being configured for Gent brand southbound panel connectivity and only CLSS cloud as northbound management connectivity.
- the runtime behavior can be identified as Gent + CLSS Cloud and this information can be provided in the gateway usage profile for this particular gateway.
- the entire firmware upgrade can be divided into multiple distributable packages. For example, kernel, BSP (boot strap processor programming), and common middleware modules as one part, with each of the northbound drivers, and southbound drivers as different additional parts.
- BSP boot strap processor programming
- common middleware modules as one part, with each of the northbound drivers, and southbound drivers as different additional parts.
- the system can analyze the configuration information regarding the system and only download and upgrade the parts relevant to the particular system components or configuration being used during the time period that has been analyzed.
- the gateway From the factory, the gateway will be loaded with the entire bundle including Kernel, BSP, common middleware modules, northbound drivers, and southbound drivers. Once it is deployed at the customer site, the distribution of further upgrades is done based on analysis of use case scenario information for which the gateway is functioning in the field.
- every distributable package will have a unique profile which includes: what part of the firmware modules the package is carrying, their versions, and their potential applicability for a target gateway. This information is compared with the as configured gateway use case information, for the specific target gateway, to determine the applicability of the different firmware upgrade parts.
- Every gateway in the field will download the release profile corresponding to the package notification or the release profile will be pushed to the gateway devices.
- the gateway Based on the release profile, if a specific part of the firmware upgrade is determined to be, for example, valid and required, based on comparison with the gateway usage profile information, the gateway will request the system management device to provide link/URI to download the specific required parts of the upgrade package.
- the gateway will download the required package parts, and can decrypt, and replace those specific applicable firmware parts (e.g., modules) with the new ones.
- Comparison of the gateway and upgrade profiles can happen either on the gateway or on a system device other than the gateway (e.g., in the cloud).
- all usage profiles of all gateways connected to the fire alarm system of the target gateway device or on multiple fire alarm systems can be managed on that device.
- the gateway can override the decision taken by the other system device.
- the type of firmware distribution and upgrade systems of the present disclosure reduce overall testing effort as the firmware upgrades are needed only if there is a change on those specific use cases or runtime behaviors and firmware upgrading is only necessary for the impacted customers having gateways needing upgrading based on the impacted use cases or runtime behaviors.
- Distribution of firmware for regulatory and non-regulatory protocols can be easily controlled with the embodiments of the present disclosure. This can be helpful where a jurisdiction, such as the United States regulates the upgrading of such firmware and requires certification of the upgrades before performing the upgrades. In jurisdictions where the is no certification, such as the European Union in this example, it may be desirable to make updates to the firmware more often as certification is not needed.
- the embodiments of the present disclosure allow less than all upgrades or less than all parts of an upgrade package to be installed on some gateways that have jurisdictional restrictions.
- Such criteria can be part of the gateway usage profile information and used to determine whether certain parts of the update package can be installed. This and other benefits of the present disclosure are discussed in more detail below with respect to the accompanying drawings.
- a or "a number of' something can refer to one or more such things.
- a number of gateways can refer to one or more gateways.
- a plurality of means two or more things.
- Figure 1 illustrates an example fire alarm system that can utilize embodiments of the present disclosure.
- the embodiment of the present disclosure shown in Figure 1 includes an overall system 100 having a system management device 102.
- This device 102 can, for example, provide a cloud environment that can allow access to the fire alarm systems 116-1, 116-K, for example via one or more web applications 104 that allow access, for instance, by system management personnel that may be remote from the site of a fire alarm system. Through such access, the personnel can access the firmware updating functionalities (firmware upgrade service 108), data (gateway usage profiles 110), and upgrade packages (firmware packages 112) shown in Figure 1 as cloud services 107 (e.g., via CLSS APIs 106) although not limited to being on the cloud.
- firmware updating functionalities firmware upgrade service 108
- data gateway usage profiles 110
- upgrade packages firmware packages
- These fire alarm systems can be at a single physical location (site) or at multiple locations as indicated at 122-1, 122-N. As shown, the one or more fire alarm systems can each include one or more fire system control panels 118-1, 118-M and/or one or more gateway devices 120-1, 120-L.
- the system management device 102 can communicate with the one or more fire alarm systems 116-1, 116-K via a number of application programming interface statements (APIs) 114. Such communications can facilitate the transmission of the firmware upgrades themselves (112), for example, via the firmware upgrade service 108 as well as gateway usage information including gateway usage profiles (e.g., gateway usage profiles 110).
- APIs application programming interface statements
- a firmware upgrade management device e.g., system management device 102
- the comparison is used to select one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to download to the particular gateway based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile.
- the functionalities of such a device can be further understood in view of the discussion provided below.
- FIG. 2 illustrates gateway connectivity within a fire alarm system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
- the gateway 220 includes gateway operating firmware 228 (which includes, for example, BSP firmware 234, Kernel firmware 236, and common middleware (e.g., bridging instructions executable by the processor of the gateway for allowing the northbound and southbound connectivities to communicate with each other)).
- gateway operating firmware 228 which includes, for example, BSP firmware 234, Kernel firmware 236, and common middleware (e.g., bridging instructions executable by the processor of the gateway for allowing the northbound and southbound connectivities to communicate with each other)).
- the gateway also includes southbound connectivity 224 and northbound connectivity 226.
- northbound and southbound connectivities are used only to illustrate that the connectivities 224 and 226 are different types of connectivity characteristics and are not meant to connote a direction.
- the southbound connectivity elements 224 include characteristics of the communication type used by various fire alarm systems to communicate with one or more fire alarm system control panel types (e.g., 118-1, 118-M of Figure 1 ).
- the characteristics can include, fire control panel brand, fire control panel model, firmware version, and protocol driver.
- a particular protocol driver type can be one of: RS485, RS232, universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART), or universal serial bus (USB), ethernet, among other suitable types.
- protocol driver type can be one of: RS485, RS232, universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART), or universal serial bus (USB), ethernet, among other suitable types.
- the panel connectivity firmware include fire control panel brand firmware types such as: Gent, Notifier, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Notifire Inspire, Eltek, and Fusion firmware types, among others.
- FIG 2 several protocol driver types are provided in the gateway at 230-1, 230-2, 230-3
- the northbound connectivity elements 226 include characteristics of the communication types used by various fire alarm systems to communicate with one or more system management devices (e.g., 102 of Figure 1 ).
- the characteristics can include, firmware type, version, and connection type.
- firmware types include: Connected Life Safety Services/Forge (CLSS) Cloud, 3 rd party alarm transport systems (AlarmT), BACnet, Modbus, and Matrix firmware types, among others.
- connection types include: ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth, among others.
- FIG 2 several connection types are provided in the gateway at 232-1, 232-2, 232-3, 232-4, 232-5, 232-P.
- FIG. 3 illustrates sample gateway usage profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
- a profile for a first gateway 340 is shown on the left with a profile of another gateway 342 shown on the right.
- Both gateways have the same common firmware profile elements 346/349 (i.e., BSP version 1.3, package version 1.2; Kernel version 4.5, package version 1.2; and common middleware version 1.2).
- the left gateway uses Gent firmware
- the right gateway uses Notifier firmware and AlarmT, with both gateways using the cloud connector to handle connections with a system management device.
- the management firmware is a connection handler that determines which connections to use to connect to other devices within or outside the fire alarm system.
- their associated usage profiles (344 and 348, respectively) indicate that these items are being used (they would not be listed if they were not being used) and the version.
- the model of device being connected to can also be included in the profile information.
- the presence of these items being used on the profile can be used as an indicator that the items have been used by the gateway or an indicator can be included in the profile. Any suitable indicator can be used.
- the indicator or the inclusion of the item being used can be added to the profile, for example, when the gateway is configured or at a later time either automatically or by management personnel.
- the profile information can be compiled into the profile periodically or usage can be tracked by executable instructions in the gateway during a period of time and the item can be included in the usage profile (of the gateway usage profile) if it has been used within the period of time being tracked. This inclusion can be done by management personnel or automatically through use of executable instructions.
- the usage can be tracked in the form of a runtime behavior, where the behavior of the gateway can be monitored and any items used during a period of time can be added to the gateway usage profile.
- FIG. 4 illustrates sample release package profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
- several release profiles (firmware upgrade profiles) are shown.
- Each release profile includes details of the items to be released in their respective release package.
- an upgrade package has multiple parts labeled release packages 1-4.
- release package 1 at 450, the release profile indicates that a Modbus upgrade is being provided to the gateways.
- the information in the release profile also includes Modbus version (1.2.3) and package version (1.2).
- This release profile information can be used to determine whether the upgrade should be provided to a particular gateway. For example, in looking at the gateway usage profiles of gateways 1 and 2 of Figure 3 , the comparison indicates that neither gateway is using Modbus and, therefore, the upgrade of release package 1 is not necessary and should not be sent to or retrieved by gateways 1 or 2.
- Release package 2 at 452 includes an AlarmT upgrade.
- gateway 2 uses AlarmT and, therefore, the upgrade should be implemented on gateway 2.
- the upgrade package containing the upgrade that was matched e.g., AlarmT in the above example.
- comparison can also be made to the version or model information to make sure the upgrade is necessary.
- the version information for the AlarmT component matches, but in some embodiments, the versions could be different indicating that a different version is available to the gateway.
- release package 3 With regard to release package 3, at 454, the comparison with the profile of gateways 1 and 2, the upgrade is relevant to both gateways. Accordingly, each gateway can receive the upgrade package and make the upgrade. Further, release package 4, at 455, includes gateway operation firmware and, therefore, in comparison with the gateway usage profiles for gateways 1 and 2, the upgrade is necessary. With gateway operation firmware, it may be the case that all gateways would need this upgrade and, therefore, every comparison of profiles would indicate that the upgrade is necessary. It should be noted that if more than one release profile indicates that the upgrade is necessary, the release packages can be sent as separate packages, bundled in multiple groups of upgrades, or can be aggregated into a single, unitary upgrade package.
- Figure 5 illustrates a comparison of a gateway usage profile and a release package profile according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
- Figure 5 provides an illustration of how the comparison is accomplished regarding a release profile of release package 550 and a set of gateway usage profiles including a common firmware profile and a usage profile on a gateway device 540.
- a decision engine 560 located on a gateway or system management device
- the embodiments of the present disclosure provide significant benefits with regard to remote firmware upgrading for gateways of fire alarm systems. These benefits include shorter upgrading periods, less time and bandwidth used for data transfer to accomplish the upgrades, and less oversight needed for reviewing an entire firmware package upgrade as the entire firmware package does not need to be resent to each gateway, among other benefits.
Landscapes
- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Signal Processing (AREA)
- Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
- Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
- Software Systems (AREA)
- General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Automation & Control Theory (AREA)
- Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
- Multimedia (AREA)
- Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
- Emergency Management (AREA)
- Stored Programmes (AREA)
- Fire Alarms (AREA)
- Alarm Systems (AREA)
Description
- The present disclosure relates to fire alarm systems, and in particular, gateways for use in fire alarm systems.
- Fire alarm system gateways are devices that can be expected to support various southbound drivers, to communicate to different fire panel brands (e.g., Gent, Notifier, Notifier-Inspire, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Eltek, Fusion), and various northbound drivers, to connect to a proprietary cloud and/or other management systems, for example, through Honeywell Forge/CLSS, Modbus, BACnet, Alarm transport (AlarmT), Matrix, etc.
- Currently, the gateway firmware is configured in the factory as a single monolithic package with all the drivers and shipped to customer sites. If there are any changes to any parts of the firmware, the entire firmware is packaged with all the drivers again and distributed as single upgrade package. This leads to several issues.
- For example, any change to any part of the northbound or southbound drivers (e.g., an event that can occur with a small bug-fix) leads to distributing a new package which needs to be applied to all the gateways. Several customers may not install this new package, even though the upgrade package includes a description of the details of the upgrade and the applicability indicates that all the gateways in the field need the update and a notification goes to all the customers.
- Though the impact driver or module size may be small, the upgrade overall package size can be large and will consume more bandwidth to download. This becomes costly when this upgrade happens over a cellular network.
- Another concern is where a specific change/feature addition on a specific use case forces the software engineers to validate the entire package even though the change/feature addition may be small. For example, typically a cloud connectivity change/feature addition need not be tested in a use case with alarm routing, however, since the package is a unitary, single package with all drivers, all the modules in the package have to be validated thoroughly before the release, which takes more time to release to market and causes a lot of work for the software engineers.
- The current approach also impacts regulatory approvals for specific use cases as the unitary, single package may need to be reevaluated in each use case rather than the specific software having to do with a particular use case. Further, some jurisdiction may require recertification of the firmware due to the upgrade and others may not. Since the update is distributed to all gateways, this procedure effectively requires all updates to be recertified as even those intended to only affect gateways in jurisdictions not requiring recertification will be install in jurisdictions requiring recertification.
-
US 2017/293478 A1 discloses a system and method for updating the firmware of slave units in a fire system that detects whether a new slave unit has been installed and compares the version of the firmware in the newly-installed slave unit with that of previously-installed slave units of the same type (including any backup copies of firmware stored by the master module in a file system). -
US 2018/152341 A1 discloses a gateway connected to a bus used for communication by a plurality of ECUs provided on-board a vehicle with: an external communication unit that receives, from a server external to the vehicle, firmware update information that includes updated firmware for one ECU from among the plurality of ECUs; an ECU information acquiring unit that acquires system configuration information indicating the type of each of the plurality of ECUs connected to the bus; and a FW update processing unit that performs a controlling operation to update firmware of the relevant ECU based on the updated firmware, after an operation verification of the updated firmware is performed using an ECU of each type indicated by the system configuration information. - The present invention is defined by the independent claims, to which reference should now be made. Advantageous embodiments are set out in the dependent claims.
-
-
Figure 1 illustrates an example fire alarm system that can utilize embodiments of the present disclosure. -
Figure 2 illustrates gateway connectivity within a fire alarm system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. -
Figure 3 illustrates sample gateway usage profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. -
Figure 4 illustrates sample release package profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. -
Figure 5 illustrates a comparison of a gateway usage profile and a release package profile according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. - As discussed above, methods and devices for usage profile based remote firmware upgrades for fire alarm system gateways are described herein. Embodiments of the present disclosure allow for the system to update firmware based on usage characteristics of components of the fire alarm system, as described in more detail below.
- For example, in one embodiment, a method, includes creating a firmware upgrade package for a number of gateways of a number of fire alarm systems wherein each gateway has gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware and wherein the firmware upgrade package has multiple parts (e.g., including upgrades to at least one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware). This example method also includes creating a firmware upgrade profile having information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware, comparing the firmware upgrade profile to a gateway usage profile of a particular gateway wherein the gateway usage profile contains information indicating usage characteristics for the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware, and selecting one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to download to the particular gateway based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile.
- In the embodiments of the present disclosure, an approach is presented where a remote upgrade of the gateway firmware is based on the usage pattern/behavior of the system. For example, in such a system, the gateway can be analyzed, for instance, over a period of time, based on its configuration, for one or more specific use cases and/or runtime behavior of the system. As used herein, a use case can be an indication of actual use of a component (such as a protocol driver) of the system based on analysis of data from the system or can be based on a standard configuration used for a particular system setup (e.g., when a Notifier protocol driver is used, then a cloud connection type is used).
- For instance, a gateway may be configured to connect a Notifier brand fire panel to a connected life safety services (CLSS) cloud connectivity having alarm transport functionality. The usage pattern of the gateway can be identified as Notifier for a southbound (i.e., to the fire control panel) driver, and CLSS Cloud and AlarmT for the northbound (i.e., to the fire management system, such as at a remote command center) driver. Similarly, the panel connectivity of the gateway can be identified as being configured for Gent brand southbound panel connectivity and only CLSS cloud as northbound management connectivity. In such an embodiment, the runtime behavior can be identified as Gent + CLSS Cloud and this information can be provided in the gateway usage profile for this particular gateway.
- The entire firmware upgrade can be divided into multiple distributable packages. For example, kernel, BSP (boot strap processor programming), and common middleware modules as one part, with each of the northbound drivers, and southbound drivers as different additional parts. In this manner, the system can analyze the configuration information regarding the system and only download and upgrade the parts relevant to the particular system components or configuration being used during the time period that has been analyzed.
- From the factory, the gateway will be loaded with the entire bundle including Kernel, BSP, common middleware modules, northbound drivers, and southbound drivers. Once it is deployed at the customer site, the distribution of further upgrades is done based on analysis of use case scenario information for which the gateway is functioning in the field.
- To do so, every distributable package will have a unique profile which includes: what part of the firmware modules the package is carrying, their versions, and their potential applicability for a target gateway. This information is compared with the as configured gateway use case information, for the specific target gateway, to determine the applicability of the different firmware upgrade parts.
- Whenever a new upgrade package is uploaded to a system management device (e.g., cloud computing device having access to the fire alarm system), every gateway in the field will download the release profile corresponding to the package notification or the release profile will be pushed to the gateway devices. Based on the release profile, if a specific part of the firmware upgrade is determined to be, for example, valid and required, based on comparison with the gateway usage profile information, the gateway will request the system management device to provide link/URI to download the specific required parts of the upgrade package.
- If the gateway is, for example, scheduled for an auto upgrade or in case of manual upgrading, upon confirmation from a user, the gateway will download the required package parts, and can decrypt, and replace those specific applicable firmware parts (e.g., modules) with the new ones. Comparison of the gateway and upgrade profiles can happen either on the gateway or on a system device other than the gateway (e.g., in the cloud).
- In embodiments where comparison takes place on another system device (e.g., within the fire alarm system or connected thereto, such as cloud based devices), all usage profiles of all gateways connected to the fire alarm system of the target gateway device or on multiple fire alarm systems can be managed on that device. In some such embodiments, the gateway can override the decision taken by the other system device.
- The type of firmware distribution and upgrade systems of the present disclosure reduce overall testing effort as the firmware upgrades are needed only if there is a change on those specific use cases or runtime behaviors and firmware upgrading is only necessary for the impacted customers having gateways needing upgrading based on the impacted use cases or runtime behaviors.
- Distribution of firmware for regulatory and non-regulatory protocols can be easily controlled with the embodiments of the present disclosure. This can be helpful where a jurisdiction, such as the United States regulates the upgrading of such firmware and requires certification of the upgrades before performing the upgrades. In jurisdictions where the is no certification, such as the European Union in this example, it may be desirable to make updates to the firmware more often as certification is not needed. The embodiments of the present disclosure allow less than all upgrades or less than all parts of an upgrade package to be installed on some gateways that have jurisdictional restrictions.
- Such criteria can be part of the gateway usage profile information and used to determine whether certain parts of the update package can be installed. this and other benefits of the present disclosure are discussed in more detail below with respect to the accompanying drawings.
- In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof. The drawings show, by way of illustration, how one or more embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced.
- These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those of ordinary skill in the art to practice one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that process, computerized, and/or structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.
- As will be appreciated, elements shown in the various embodiments herein can be added, exchanged, combined, and/or eliminated so as to provide a number of additional embodiments of the present disclosure. The proportion and the relative scale of the elements provided in the figures are intended to illustrate the embodiments of the present disclosure and should not be taken in a limiting sense.
- The figures herein follow a numbering convention in which the first digit or digits correspond to the drawing figure number and the remaining digits identify an element or component in the drawing. Similar elements or components between different figures may be identified by the use of similar digits. For example, 120 may reference element "20" in
Figure 1 , and a similar element may be referenced as 220 inFigure 2 . Further, the use of letters in identifiers (e.g., 118-M) indicate that any number of these multiple items with that number may be used in the embodiments. - As used herein, "a" or "a number of' something can refer to one or more such things. For example, "a number of gateways" can refer to one or more gateways. As used herein, "a plurality of" means two or more things.
-
Figure 1 illustrates an example fire alarm system that can utilize embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiment of the present disclosure shown inFigure 1 includes anoverall system 100 having asystem management device 102. - This
device 102 can, for example, provide a cloud environment that can allow access to the fire alarm systems 116-1, 116-K, for example via one ormore web applications 104 that allow access, for instance, by system management personnel that may be remote from the site of a fire alarm system. Through such access, the personnel can access the firmware updating functionalities (firmware upgrade service 108), data (gateway usage profiles 110), and upgrade packages (firmware packages 112) shown inFigure 1 as cloud services 107 (e.g., via CLSS APIs 106) although not limited to being on the cloud. - These fire alarm systems can be at a single physical location (site) or at multiple locations as indicated at 122-1, 122-N. As shown, the one or more fire alarm systems can each include one or more fire system control panels 118-1, 118-M and/or one or more gateway devices 120-1, 120-L.
- The
system management device 102 can communicate with the one or more fire alarm systems 116-1, 116-K via a number of application programming interface statements (APIs) 114. Such communications can facilitate the transmission of the firmware upgrades themselves (112), for example, via thefirmware upgrade service 108 as well as gateway usage information including gateway usage profiles (e.g., gateway usage profiles 110). - Provided below is one example of a device for use in an embodiment of the present disclosure. In this example, a firmware upgrade management device (e.g., system management device 102) has computing device executable instructions (provided by software executed by a processor and/or firmware) thereon to perform a method, including: creating a firmware upgrade package for a number of gateways of a number of fire alarm systems wherein each gateway has gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware and wherein the firmware upgrade package has multiple parts, creating a firmware upgrade profile having information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware, and comparing the firmware upgrade profile to a gateway usage profile of a particular gateway wherein the gateway usage profile contains information indicating usage characteristics for the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware.
- The comparison is used to select one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package to download to the particular gateway based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile. The functionalities of such a device can be further understood in view of the discussion provided below.
-
Figure 2 illustrates gateway connectivity within a fire alarm system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the embodiment shown inFigure 2 , thegateway 220 includes gateway operating firmware 228 (which includes, for example,BSP firmware 234,Kernel firmware 236, and common middleware (e.g., bridging instructions executable by the processor of the gateway for allowing the northbound and southbound connectivities to communicate with each other)). - The gateway also includes
southbound connectivity 224 andnorthbound connectivity 226. As used herein, northbound and southbound connectivities are used only to illustrate that theconnectivities - The
southbound connectivity elements 224 include characteristics of the communication type used by various fire alarm systems to communicate with one or more fire alarm system control panel types (e.g., 118-1, 118-M ofFigure 1 ). For example, the characteristics can include, fire control panel brand, fire control panel model, firmware version, and protocol driver. For instance, a particular protocol driver type can be one of: RS485, RS232, universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART), or universal serial bus (USB), ethernet, among other suitable types. Examples of the panel connectivity firmware include fire control panel brand firmware types such as: Gent, Notifier, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Notifire Inspire, Eltek, and Fusion firmware types, among others. InFigure 2 several protocol driver types are provided in the gateway at 230-1, 230-2, 230-3, 230-4, 230-J. - The
northbound connectivity elements 226 include characteristics of the communication types used by various fire alarm systems to communicate with one or more system management devices (e.g., 102 ofFigure 1 ). For example, the characteristics can include, firmware type, version, and connection type. - For example, some firmware types include: Connected Life Safety Services/Forge (CLSS) Cloud, 3rd party alarm transport systems (AlarmT), BACnet, Modbus, and Matrix firmware types, among others. Some examples of connection types include: ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth, among others. In
Figure 2 several connection types are provided in the gateway at 232-1, 232-2, 232-3, 232-4, 232-5, 232-P. -
Figure 3 illustrates sample gateway usage profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the embodiment illustrated inFigure 3 , a profile for afirst gateway 340 is shown on the left with a profile of anothergateway 342 shown on the right. - As can be understood from viewing the two gateway usage profiles, their configurations are quite different. Both gateways have the same common
firmware profile elements 346/349 (i.e., BSP version 1.3, package version 1.2; Kernel version 4.5, package version 1.2; and common middleware version 1.2). However, the left gateway uses Gent firmware, while the right gateway uses Notifier firmware and AlarmT, with both gateways using the cloud connector to handle connections with a system management device. In some embodiments, the management firmware is a connection handler that determines which connections to use to connect to other devices within or outside the fire alarm system. - Accordingly, their associated usage profiles (344 and 348, respectively) indicate that these items are being used (they would not be listed if they were not being used) and the version. In some embodiments, the model of device being connected to can also be included in the profile information.
- The presence of these items being used on the profile can be used as an indicator that the items have been used by the gateway or an indicator can be included in the profile. Any suitable indicator can be used. The indicator or the inclusion of the item being used can be added to the profile, for example, when the gateway is configured or at a later time either automatically or by management personnel.
- Further, the profile information can be compiled into the profile periodically or usage can be tracked by executable instructions in the gateway during a period of time and the item can be included in the usage profile (of the gateway usage profile) if it has been used within the period of time being tracked. This inclusion can be done by management personnel or automatically through use of executable instructions. For example, the usage can be tracked in the form of a runtime behavior, where the behavior of the gateway can be monitored and any items used during a period of time can be added to the gateway usage profile.
-
Figure 4 illustrates sample release package profiles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the embodiment illustrated inFigure 4 , several release profiles (firmware upgrade profiles) are shown. Each release profile includes details of the items to be released in their respective release package. - In
Figure 4 , an upgrade package has multiple parts labeled release packages 1-4. For example, inrelease package 1, at 450, the release profile indicates that a Modbus upgrade is being provided to the gateways. The information in the release profile also includes Modbus version (1.2.3) and package version (1.2). This release profile information can be used to determine whether the upgrade should be provided to a particular gateway. For example, in looking at the gateway usage profiles ofgateways Figure 3 , the comparison indicates that neither gateway is using Modbus and, therefore, the upgrade ofrelease package 1 is not necessary and should not be sent to or retrieved bygateways -
Release package 2, at 452, includes an AlarmT upgrade. In comparison of this release profile with the profiles ofgateways Figure 3 ,gateway 2 uses AlarmT and, therefore, the upgrade should be implemented ongateway 2. In this manner, when a match is found between the information in the release profile and a gateway usage profile, it indicates that the upgrade is necessary and that the gateway should obtain the upgrade package containing the upgrade that was matched (e.g., AlarmT in the above example). - As discussed herein, comparison can also be made to the version or model information to make sure the upgrade is necessary. In this case, the version information for the AlarmT component matches, but in some embodiments, the versions could be different indicating that a different version is available to the gateway.
- With regard to release
package 3, at 454, the comparison with the profile ofgateways release package 4, at 455, includes gateway operation firmware and, therefore, in comparison with the gateway usage profiles forgateways -
Figure 5 illustrates a comparison of a gateway usage profile and a release package profile according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.Figure 5 provides an illustration of how the comparison is accomplished regarding a release profile ofrelease package 550 and a set of gateway usage profiles including a common firmware profile and a usage profile on agateway device 540. - In this illustration, a decision engine 560 (located on a gateway or system management device) can be used to evaluate whether the upgrade should be implemented on a particular gateway. Based on the comparison of the release profile and the usage profile and common firmware profile of the gateway usage profile, the upgrade is not applicable. Accordingly, the upgrade to the Modbus should not be implemented on gateway 1 (indicated at 540).
- As can be understood from the above discussion, the embodiments of the present disclosure provide significant benefits with regard to remote firmware upgrading for gateways of fire alarm systems. These benefits include shorter upgrading periods, less time and bandwidth used for data transfer to accomplish the upgrades, and less oversight needed for reviewing an entire firmware package upgrade as the entire firmware package does not need to be resent to each gateway, among other benefits.
- Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that any arrangement calculated to achieve the same techniques can be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or variations of various embodiments of the disclosure.
- It is to be understood that the above description has been made in an illustrative fashion and not a restrictive one. Combination of the above embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein, will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description.
- The scope of the various embodiments of the disclosure includes any other applications in which the above structures and methods are used. Therefore, the scope of various embodiments of the disclosure should be determined with reference to the appended claims.
- In the foregoing Detailed Description, various features are grouped together in example embodiments illustrated in the figures for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the embodiments of the disclosure require more features than are expressly recited in each claim.
- Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.
Claims (14)
- A firmware upgrade method for fire alarm system gateways, comprising:creating a firmware upgrade package (112), on a firmware upgrade management device (102) located remote from the fire alarm system, for a number of gateways (120) of a number of fire alarm systems (122) wherein each gateway (120) has gateway operating firmware, fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and fire system management firmware and wherein the firmware upgrade package (112) has multiple parts including upgrades to at least one of the gateway operating firmware, the fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and the fire system management firmware;creating a firmware upgrade profile having information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package (112) to one of the gateway operating firmware, fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and fire system management firmware;accessing the number of gateways with the firmware upgrade management device;comparing, via the firmware upgrade management device, the firmware upgrade profile to a gateway usage profile of a particular gateway (120) wherein the gateway usage profile contains information indicating usage characteristics for the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware; andselecting, at the firmware upgrade management device, one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package (112) to download to the particular gateway (120) based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular fire panel brand.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular fire panel model.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular fire panel firmware version.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular protocol driver type.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular protocol driver type selected from the group including: RS485, RS232, universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter,UART, universal serial bus, USB, ethernet protocol drivers.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular connection type.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts includes applicability to a particular connection type selected from the group including: ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth connection types.
- The firmware upgrade management method for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 1, wherein the gateway includes bridging executable instructions for allowing communication between the panel connectivity firmware and the management firmware and wherein the firmware update package (112) includes updated- the bridging executable instructions and that the bridging executable instructions are included in the gateway operating firmware.
- A firmware upgrade management device (102) for upgrading fire alarm system gateways, comprising:
a computing device executable instructions thereon to perform a method, comprising:creating a firmware upgrade package (112), on a firmware upgrade management device located remote from the fire alarm system, for a number of gateways (120) of a number of fire alarm systems (122) wherein each gateway (120) has gateway operating firmware, fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and fire system management firmware and wherein the firmware upgrade package (112) has multiple parts including upgrades to at least one of the gateway operating firmware, the fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and the fire system management firmware;creating a firmware upgrade profile having information indicating the applicability of each of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package (112) to one of the gateway operating firmware, panel connectivity firmware, and management firmware;accessing the number of gateways with the firmware upgrade management device;comparing, via the firmware upgrade management device, the firmware upgrade profile to a gateway usage profile of a particular gateway (120) wherein the gateway usage profile contains information indicating usage characteristics for the gateway operating firmware, fire system control panel connectivity firmware, and fire system management firmware; andselecting, at the firmware upgrade management device, one or more of the multiple parts of the firmware upgrade package (112) to download to the particular gateway (120) based on the comparison of the firmware upgrade profile and the gateway usage profile. - The firmware upgrade management device for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 10, wherein the gateway operating firmware includes at least one firmware type selected from the group including: boot strap processing firmware ,BSP, Kernel firmware, and common middleware firmware.
- The firmware upgrade management device for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 10, wherein the panel connectivity firmware includes at least one fire control panel brand firmware type selected from the group including: Gent, Notifier, Esser, Firelite, Printer port, Gamewell FCI, Morley, Notifire Inspire, Eltek, and Fusion firmware types.
- The firmware upgrade management device for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 10, wherein the management firmware includes at least one firmware type selected from the group including: Connected Life Safety Services/Forge ,CLSS, Cloud, 3rd party alarm transport systems, BACnet, Modbus, and Matrix firmware types.
- The firmware upgrade management device for upgrading fire alarm system gateways of claim 10, wherein the management firmware is a connection handler that determines which connections to use to connect to other devices within or outside the fire alarm system.
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
US16/887,989 US11150889B1 (en) | 2020-05-29 | 2020-05-29 | Usage profile based remote firmware upgrade for fire alarm system gateway |
Publications (2)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
EP3916542A1 EP3916542A1 (en) | 2021-12-01 |
EP3916542B1 true EP3916542B1 (en) | 2023-07-19 |
Family
ID=75914251
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
EP21173312.6A Active EP3916542B1 (en) | 2020-05-29 | 2021-05-11 | Usage profile based remote firmware upgrade for fire alarm system gateway |
Country Status (2)
Country | Link |
---|---|
US (2) | US11150889B1 (en) |
EP (1) | EP3916542B1 (en) |
Families Citing this family (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
CN114422357A (en) * | 2022-01-21 | 2022-04-29 | 浙江天正智能电器有限公司 | Upgrading method, device, terminal and storage medium |
CN114860279B (en) * | 2022-04-22 | 2023-03-14 | 珠海海奇半导体有限公司 | Rapid empty-chip upgrading method |
Family Cites Families (14)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
WO1999060804A1 (en) * | 1998-05-18 | 1999-11-25 | Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc. | Network based electrical control system with distributed sensing and control |
US20040203755A1 (en) * | 2003-04-11 | 2004-10-14 | Jeffrey Brunet | Mobile care framework |
US10156959B2 (en) * | 2005-03-16 | 2018-12-18 | Icontrol Networks, Inc. | Cross-client sensor user interface in an integrated security network |
US8581720B2 (en) | 2005-11-17 | 2013-11-12 | Utc Fire & Security Americas Corporation, Inc. | Methods, systems, and computer program products for remotely updating security systems |
US8078688B2 (en) * | 2006-12-29 | 2011-12-13 | Prodea Systems, Inc. | File sharing through multi-services gateway device at user premises |
KR20120023474A (en) | 2010-09-03 | 2012-03-13 | 엘에스산전 주식회사 | System and method for firmware update of household appliances, and meter |
EP2878140B1 (en) | 2012-07-26 | 2019-03-20 | UTC Fire & Security Americas Corporation, Inc. | Wireless firmware upgrades to an alarm security panel |
US8594850B1 (en) | 2012-09-30 | 2013-11-26 | Nest Labs, Inc. | Updating control software on a network-connected HVAC controller |
US9513898B2 (en) | 2014-06-30 | 2016-12-06 | Google Inc. | Systems and methods for updating software in a hazard detection system |
JP6723829B2 (en) * | 2015-09-14 | 2020-07-15 | パナソニック インテレクチュアル プロパティ コーポレーション オブ アメリカPanasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America | Gateway device, firmware updating method and control program |
US20170293478A1 (en) * | 2016-04-11 | 2017-10-12 | Tyco Fire & Security Gmbh | Fire detection system with automatic firmware updating |
US10425449B2 (en) * | 2017-02-15 | 2019-09-24 | Dell Products, L.P. | Classifying internet-of-things (IOT) gateways using principal component analysis |
US10313850B2 (en) * | 2017-07-24 | 2019-06-04 | Honeywell International Inc. | Systems and methods for upgrading firmware in multiple devices of a wireless fire detection system |
US10965759B2 (en) * | 2018-09-04 | 2021-03-30 | Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited | System and method of internet of things (IoT) |
-
2020
- 2020-05-29 US US16/887,989 patent/US11150889B1/en active Active
-
2021
- 2021-05-11 EP EP21173312.6A patent/EP3916542B1/en active Active
- 2021-10-19 US US17/505,057 patent/US11733993B2/en active Active
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
US11150889B1 (en) | 2021-10-19 |
EP3916542A1 (en) | 2021-12-01 |
US11733993B2 (en) | 2023-08-22 |
US20220035624A1 (en) | 2022-02-03 |
Similar Documents
Publication | Publication Date | Title |
---|---|---|
EP3916542B1 (en) | Usage profile based remote firmware upgrade for fire alarm system gateway | |
CN106257416B (en) | Method for wireless remote updating of vehicle software | |
US10165084B2 (en) | Method for software updating of vehicle components | |
CN106257420B (en) | Method for updating ECU using differential update package | |
US10756974B2 (en) | Launch multiple devices firmware update operation from another application with device list context | |
JP4701977B2 (en) | In-vehicle network diagnosis system and in-vehicle control device | |
CN103109275B (en) | The system of virtual instrument, method and apparatus is used in semiconductor test environment | |
US20150169311A1 (en) | Automated Software Update Scheduling | |
US20160364230A1 (en) | Telematics control unit comprising a differential update package | |
US8539472B2 (en) | Method and system of updating shared memory | |
US7136728B2 (en) | Computerized wheel alignment system with improved stability and serviceability | |
US20140006555A1 (en) | Remote transfer of electronic images to a vehicle | |
WO2007059184A2 (en) | Rfid with two tier connectivity, rfid in the plc rack, secure rfid tags and rfid multiplexer system | |
CN102301332A (en) | Method for updating software components | |
US9443359B2 (en) | Vehicle electronic control unit calibration | |
US11106187B2 (en) | Flexible assembly system for variable reconfiguration, and method of reconfiguring production line | |
US20190196806A1 (en) | Method and system for updating the software of a motor vehicle sensor | |
US11327842B2 (en) | Backing up a software update of a control device of transport vehicle | |
US12050903B2 (en) | OTA master, system, method, non-transitory storage medium, and vehicle | |
US20230418587A1 (en) | Vehicle control device, vehicle system and update system | |
US20220283797A1 (en) | Center, update control method, non-transitory storage medium, ota master, and software update system | |
US11706297B2 (en) | Integration of a machine into an existing distributed ledger network | |
US20120246522A1 (en) | Method and device for detecting logic interface incompatibilities of equipment items of on-board systems | |
CN113849204A (en) | Server, update management method, storage device, software update device, center and OTA host | |
CN113472759A (en) | Method for changing vehicle communication protocol, server and readable storage medium |
Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
PUAI | Public reference made under article 153(3) epc to a published international application that has entered the european phase |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009012 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: REQUEST FOR EXAMINATION WAS MADE |
|
17P | Request for examination filed |
Effective date: 20210511 |
|
AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: A1 Designated state(s): AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR |
|
B565 | Issuance of search results under rule 164(2) epc |
Effective date: 20211022 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: EXAMINATION IS IN PROGRESS |
|
17Q | First examination report despatched |
Effective date: 20220922 |
|
GRAJ | Information related to disapproval of communication of intention to grant by the applicant or resumption of examination proceedings by the epo deleted |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSDIGR1 |
|
GRAP | Despatch of communication of intention to grant a patent |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNIGR1 |
|
GRAP | Despatch of communication of intention to grant a patent |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNIGR1 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: GRANT OF PATENT IS INTENDED |
|
RIC1 | Information provided on ipc code assigned before grant |
Ipc: G08B 25/14 20060101ALI20230303BHEP Ipc: G08B 17/00 20060101ALI20230303BHEP Ipc: G06F 9/445 20060101ALI20230303BHEP Ipc: G06F 8/65 20180101AFI20230303BHEP |
|
INTG | Intention to grant announced |
Effective date: 20230330 |
|
GRAS | Grant fee paid |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNIGR3 |
|
GRAA | (expected) grant |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009210 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: THE PATENT HAS BEEN GRANTED |
|
P01 | Opt-out of the competence of the unified patent court (upc) registered |
Effective date: 20230523 |
|
AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: B1 Designated state(s): AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: GB Ref legal event code: FG4D |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: CH Ref legal event code: EP |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R096 Ref document number: 602021003547 Country of ref document: DE |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: IE Ref legal event code: FG4D |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: LT Ref legal event code: MG9D |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: NL Ref legal event code: MP Effective date: 20230719 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: AT Ref legal event code: MK05 Ref document number: 1590142 Country of ref document: AT Kind code of ref document: T Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: NL Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: GR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231020 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: IS Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231119 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: SE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: RS Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: PT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231120 Ref country code: NO Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231019 Ref country code: LV Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: LT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: IS Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231119 Ref country code: HR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: GR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20231020 Ref country code: FI Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: AT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: PL Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R097 Ref document number: 602021003547 Country of ref document: DE |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: ES Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: SM Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: RO Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: ES Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: EE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: DK Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: CZ Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 Ref country code: SK Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PLBE | No opposition filed within time limit |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009261 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: NO OPPOSITION FILED WITHIN TIME LIMIT |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: IT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
26N | No opposition filed |
Effective date: 20240422 |
|
PGFP | Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: DE Payment date: 20240529 Year of fee payment: 4 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: SI Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20230719 |
|
PGFP | Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: FR Payment date: 20240527 Year of fee payment: 4 |